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A VHS Reality
25B-NBOH
Citation:   TiHKALmonster. "A VHS Reality: An Experience with 25B-NBOH (exp114435)". Erowid.org. May 26, 2020. erowid.org/exp/114435

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
500 ug oral 25B-NBOH (blotter / tab)
  T+ 0:35 750 ug oral 25B-NBOH (blotter / tab)
BODY WEIGHT: 160 lb
Some background: I’ve tripped pretty heavily on literally dozens of psychedelics before this point, and am an experienced drug user on many accounts, but this compound still took me by surprise. This was my first foray into the NBOMe/NBOH series, but 6 months prior to this I had tried this same compound at half a milligram
6 months prior to this I had tried this same compound at half a milligram
, so I can say with some certainty that my experience was not a set/setting thing.

On a lovely spring morning in April, a friend (Eric) and I decided to indulge in the unique opportunity of sampling some 25B-NBOH that was gifted to me by a dear friend, 6 months prior. The tabs were half a milligram, and having tried this stuff once before, I ruled that we should each take 1 tab and redoes 45 min in if needed. We placed the extremely bitter tabs under our tongues and set off with our friend and trip sitter Paul along a secluded city trail leading out into the woods.

0:12 The first very slight effects were becoming noticeable, nothing but a subtle change in headspace.

0:35 Colors were starting to pop out from the surroundings. We both agreed that blues and greens were becoming oversaturated, although at the time it was hard to confirm that since we were walking along a green grassy trail and facing towards a dark blue oncoming storm on the horizon. The scenery seemed enhanced somehow, but not in the sort of connected-to-the-earth way that I sometimes get it while using a tryptamine. It felt very synthetic, and I was beginning to feel a bit disconnected from my surroundings in a subtle way. Both of us were feeling good, so Eric took another tab and I took a tab and a half. 5 minutes later the nausea hit Eric, and then me after another 5. The bitter tabs definitely didn’t help…

0:55 We spent a good 20 minutes trying to find a way to describe this phenomenon we were both seeing. Eventually we settled on the word ‘Essence’, which we were both very proud of. The effect was akin to tracers in that it was an afterimage of an object, but it behaved differently, and seemed to involve more cognition, i.e. fenceposts would leave ghost fenceposts as I walked past them, and these ghosts almost seemed like residual energy of the object rather than just a simple copy/paste of the image. Very hard to describe, but very interesting. At one point I was looking down as we crossed a large overhead gate, and I very nearly fell from flinching, because the Essence of the gate was as a wall in the path, and I was going to hit it! Paul’s ridiculous green couch blanket he was wearing as a cape flapped regally in the wind, and the Essence it left almost seemed to compel me forward.

1:15 Walking while tripping is such a stabilizing activity. The constant passage of scenery seems to sweep bad thoughts away with it, and keeping your mind focused on moving forward is such a great way to keep from dwelling on errant negativity. By this time I thought I was peaking, although in retrospect I probably still had a ways to climb. We were still walking into the oncoming storm, and the growing thunderclouds mixed with my raw and unprotected mind and started to give me some bad vibes. I was still able to maintain cheerfulness and wonder, but some serious maladaptive thoughts were coming into my head (no one likes me, I’m not good enough, what am I doing with my life sorts-of-things), and this keyed me in that I wasn’t nearly as clear-headed as I thought I was.

The visuals however were incredible! Blues and greens had been saturated to an almost comical level, like 12 year old me trying to ‘enhance’ an image in Photoshop Elements. At one point Eric exclaimed as if to the gods “ok, these colors aren’t even funny anymore. At least make it *believable*”. Another unique effect was that things seemed to split into their RGB color values, ie a tuft of grass would be seen as 3 overlapping images of the tuft, in their corresponding colors. This tripling of objects was not limited to color, either. Trees would have an overlapping Essence on either side of them, and sticks and rocks on the path seemed to multiply the closer you looked. The whole scenery took on a sort of old-VHS tape vibe, which Eric brought up after I had been thinking it for a while. By far the most interesting visual was a minutely detailed Moiré pattern that would appear in my vision, about as large in the visual field as an outstretched fist. The effect didn’t last long, or seem to be tied to any color or visual object, but it would come up every 10 seconds or so, and it excited me because Eric saw it as well. I had just finished reading Psychedelic Information Theory, a fascinating book by James Kent about the scientific basis behind the psychedelic experience. He models consciousness as a collection of individual consciousness moments, or packets, that are generated at a regular frequency (on the order of 10 or 20 Hz I believe), and claims that when tripping, each packet of consciousness goes through an ASDR envelope unique to that particular drug, which is the root cause of all of psychedelia. Because of the mathematical wave nature of Moiré patterns, I wonder if the effect could stem from some form of frame overlap of incoming sensory information. Very intriguing…

1:30 We felt rain as we reached the end of the trail, and turned back to go home. Eric asked me for an etizolam, which I gave him (1 mg, on a sugar cube). This didn’t seem to diminish his trip, but he later told me that he was secretly frightened, and the etiz made things much more comfortable. He had felt himself slipping away from sanity along the walk and the longer we walked shorter the spaces between those ‘slips’ had been.

Looking back on it, this was probably the closest I had come to losing my own sanity, even over the 6 g of mushrooms and 100 ug of acid that I consumed a month prior. This drug feels very synthetic and artificial, like if someone tried to build a psychedelic experience from the ground up, with nothing to go off of but trip reports.
This drug feels very synthetic and artificial, like if someone tried to build a psychedelic experience from the ground up, with nothing to go off of but trip reports.
It was very flashy and in-your-face, but nothing about the experience seemed intrinsically wholesome or beneficial as tryptamines and lysergamides often do. I’m glad I got a second chance at trying this one and I really loved the experience, but it’s not one I’m ever going to stock in my psychedelic repertoire.

5:30 I had a nagging headache from overstimulation, and maladaptive thoughts were still weighing me down, but we were both having a good time on my floor, staring at the sparkly ceiling. Visuals were mostly gone at this point.

8:00 I drove Eric home without much trouble. Focusing was a bit more difficult than normal, but I was certainly safe to drive.

9:30 Nothing but residual stimulation. I laid in bed for hours before falling asleep, but it’s nothing I didn’t expect 😊Headache lasted until I passed out.

Tl;dr 25B-NBOH gave both me and a friend very unique visuals and crazy intense color saturation, but very little positive introspection. I value this trip because the negative thoughts that surfaced for me helped me confront some insecurities of mine, but regardless I would not use this drug for philosophical ventures. Vasoconstriction was not bad, but I wasn’t particularly in tune with my body, so YMMV. Overall I would recommend a dose of this stuff once or twice to those who are curious about the NBOH’s, but it’s not something I would feel comfortable or safe using on a regular basis. I have 3 tabs of the stuff left, and I’m going to keep them in my freezer until I forget about them. Maybe someday, far in the future, I’ll feel the tug for something novel and bring it out again, but for now I’m bidding the NBOH’s a fond farewell.

Exp Year: 2020ExpID: 114435
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 23
Published: May 26, 2020Views: 3,554
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25B-NBOH (614) : Small Group (2-9) (17), General (1)

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